Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, has announced that a new content optimization feature is now live on the platform, crediting team members Lingyun Gao and Zach Warunek for shipping the update.

The new feature comes after Bier shared screenshots of a conversation from May 18 where a person behind the now-suspended X account, @neptune_btc1, offered to help him boost engagement on X, a clear violation of the platform’s policy. 

Bier wrote, “This is equivalent to trying to sell a cop drugs while he’s in uniform in his police car.” The remark captured the part product builder, part platform enforcer posture Nikita has adopted throughout 2026.

Nikita Bier has led X crackdowns in 2026

The “cop” moment was the latest in a string of enforcement actions under Bier’s watch. In January, Cryptopolitan reported that X revoked API access from so-called InfoFi projects, which rewarded users for posting and had flooded the platform with bot-generated replies and AI-written content.

At that time, Bier stated that they “will no longer allow apps that reward users for posting on X (aka “infofi”). 

According to Bier, these projects led to an increase in the amount of AI slop and reply spam on the platform, adding that the changes should improve the user experience “once the bots realize they’re not getting paid anymore.”

By April, X had rolled out an auto-lock system targeting accounts that post about cryptocurrency for the first time. 

The mechanism forces identity verification before the account can post again, a measure Bier said “should kill 99% of the incentive” for criminals who steal accounts to push fake investment schemes.

The same month, Nikita disclosed that cryptocurrency had become the most muted topic on X since the platform launched its Snooze Topics feature for premium users. Politics, the Iran conflict, and sports followed in the ranking.

The most snoozed (i.e., muted) topics since launching the snooze feature:

1. Crypto
2. Politics
3. Iran Conflict
4. Sports
5. Business & Finance
6. Gaming
7. Artificial Intelligence
8. Videos
9. Science & Technology
10. Entertainment & Arts https://t.co/ycp7OBHp8B

— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) April 30, 2026

How is Bier’s relationship with crypto?

While Bier has pushed for crypto integration through features like ticker-linked trading and cashtag labeling, he is also simultaneously cutting off projects and practices he considers parasitic.

In March 2025, Bier announced that he was joining Solana as an advisor, stating that the blockchain had “the fundamental building blocks for something to break out on mobile.” 

In the same thread, he acknowledged having “mixed opinions on crypto over the years” but pointed out that the regulatory environment had shifted enough to make the space attractive for consumer product builders.

That advisory role came months before his January crackdown on InfoFi projects and his February comments about crypto spam during X’s. “I genuinely want crypto to proliferate on X,” Bier wrote in February 2026, “but applications that create incentives to spam, raid, and harass random users is not the way.”

What the new feature signals

The shipped update, announced with a simple “Shipped” and credits to his team, fits into X’s push toward content optimization tools, including the Creator Connect feature. The feature allows premium users to know the number and percentage of their followers who have been active in the past 24 hours. 

Also, X still holds money-handling licenses in more than 40 U.S. states and is still testing its X Money digital wallet. X has over 600 million monthly users and has plans to reach one billion. The platform’s product direction under Bier has combined financial feature expansion with increasingly aggressive content policing.

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